Saying Goodbye
by Blackrose715378
Summary: Draw your own conclusion.
1. A Return To Chaos

He did not have the patience for this. Dread's new bodyguard, or whatever the hell he was, spent his time attempting to light his cigarettes with a blowtorch he had stolen from Berto along with countless other tools he was planning to use for only god knows what. Rachel was becoming a little too friendly for comfort with her old brother-in-law, the aforementioned Dread, or as he insisted on being called: "Mr. Nathanson" or "Marco". Berto had started building new Fidos that spewed motor oil on anyone they didn't recognize, and since they were faulty, they just vomited all over anyone within range, and Kat and Max weren't talking to each other because Kat had broken Max's- no, Josh's- new skateboard. To top it all off, he now had a Langley lackey at his desk requesting assistance on a case the agency had forced N-Tek out of. And people were surprised he was already completely bald at his comparatively young age.

On top of everything else he had on his plate at the moment, the now had to deal with the overly polished man sitting in front of his desk insisting he was not from the CIA, yet requesting information for said agency.

"Look," Jefferson sighed, "just let me know what kind of clearance you've got, and I'll see what kind of information I'm authorized to give you."

The other man was silent.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well what kind of clearance do you have?"

"That information's privileged."

"So is mine."

"Mine's more privileged than yours."

"Well then what I know can't be that important to you."

"It's not."

"Well then why d9o you need it so badly?"

"That's classified."

It was going to be a long day.


	2. Operation Eyeroll

A/N: **Ponders** Hm, either a certain British crowd will get mad at me for what happens in this chapter, or I've gotten some fact about the surroundings wrong. Let's find out which...who knows...maybe both at once!

Chapter 2

Somewhere outside London, Dragonelle was puttering around in a small cheery kitchen making tea. Even though her mimicry skills were, of course, perfect, she had still insisted on driving Psycho crazy "getting into character" over the last week.

Said cyborg, woken up by the clattering of china, ambled crankily into the area of their temporary base presently decorated to the style of their surroundings.

"Good morning," Dragonelle, who was now dressed as a matronly housekeeper, greeted him happily.

"Your accent's terrible," he lied as he crossed the kitchen and went over to stare at some blueprints on the wall that held important information concerning the day's activities.

"It's perfect and you know it," she replied smugly. Turning, he saw that she had shed the disguise and was back to her normal appearance. The housekeeper mask and body suit were somehow folded neatly into a briefcase on the table. He didn't know how she did it. He didn't really know how she did anything. It kind of pissed him off. Snatching the blueprints from the wall, he rolled them all neatly together and shoved them into a duffel bag already weighted down with plenty of C4, along with some choice pyrotechnics. It would be more of a publicity stunt than anything. Big city, but limited casualties. Today they would strike in their 20th country.

Berto sat in his usual place, although the door was blocked by lasers- his newest playthings of choice. _Powerful and pretty to look at all at once_, he thought, then blushed furiously as the more feminine part of Team Steel strode up to the bars.

"Find anything yet, Martinez?"

"Quizas," he said, "pero no voy a decirte nada."

"Oh come on," Kat whined. "It was one burger!"

Without a word, he swiveled in his chair to face his console again, refusing to smile and let her know he wasn't still mad. As of late, he had decided that the easiest way of punishing his teammates from their discretions was to make them regret skipping out of Spanish class.

"Oh fine," she grumbled as she picked up a backpack from the floor and withdrew from it a paper White Castle bag. Whistling to get his attention, unnecessarily, she tossed the bag between the lasers and tapped her foot expectantly.

Berto all but dove to save the sack of burgers from the indecency of hitting the floor. "No lanza las cosas preciosas!" He exclaimed furiously as he slid back across the floor, cradling the bag in his arms.

Kat looked skeptical. "You can't possibly love food that much."

In response, he shoved an entire burger in his mouth.

"There's a thing called chewing, ya know. And let's go- we're even now."

Berto pondered this fact, swallowed, and then hit a button to let her through the lasers. "Where's Max?" he asked suspiciously, knowing he wanted to know what was going on just as much as she did.

Kat said nothing, but instead watched over Berto's shoulder as a burger seemed to float out of the bag and then disappear into thin air.

"No fair!" Berto yelled, as Max shimmered into sight next to him.

"Come on, Bro, should have seen that coming."

Berto stared at him for a few seconds, then quickly snatched the bag closer to himself and typed something on his keyboard to bring up a black and white display. "This," he said slowly, "is what the computer at Psychonelle's lair is seeming to focus on."

Max made a face. "Psychonelle?"

Kat smirked. "He came up with it himself. Still thinks 'Biocon' was incredibly clever".

"What's wrong with 'Biocon'?!" Berto demanded defensively.

"Moving on..."

"Fine," he said, although he gave her a glance over his shoulder before clicking a file on the black and white display to make it bigger. It's name was two words long.

"Operation Eyeroll?" Kat asked, rolling her own eyes at the name.

Max kept his focus on the screen, then finally shifted it to Berto. "What does it mean, Bro?"

Berto shrugged. "From the looks of it, the file contains blueprints of a few major tourist attractions around London, and some angles and numbers that I'm still trying to work out."

Kat looked to the ceiling, as if it might hold a hint at the answer. "Eyeroll?"

Finally, a break after pretending to guard that creepy "call me Marco" guy. Blaine sighed as he collapsed onto the couch in the break room. All day he'd been starving, and now he smelled White Castle somewhere in the building. Probably some of Weird Guy's minions. They were always hoarding things. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned back and savored the smoke before turning on the TV. Seeing that the news was playing, he went to change the channel, but stopped at the last minute, catching a familiar logo. After staring at it for a moment, he walked to the window, leaned out and looked up at the side of the building. Yep, it was the same one all right. So what was it doing, he wondered, drawn in flames at the base of a humongous ferris wheel? Watching the story unfold, he snorted as fireworks went off, and the ferris wheel, called the London Eye, according to the newscaster, was blown off its base and rolled down the street for a ways before collapsing into the water.

As the story continued, some man with a really bad hairpiece began to read aloud a note left by the supposed terrorists concerning what they called "Operation Eyeroll". _Eyeroll, ha. I get it_. He chuckled as the station replayed the footage, starting with the fiery N-Tek logo, and slowly panning out to the smoking mess lying in the Thames.


	3. Unlikely Bedfellows

A/N: Ok, this was actually a challenge fic from AkiliChan, but now I think I'm actually gonna put it as part of this fic. Let's see if I can keep it from getting too weird…

Dragonelle had always been a sleepwalker. It had been a problem when she was a child- she would sometimes wander off and wake up miles away from her house, not having any idea where she was.

So, it was really no surprise when she woke up in an unfamiliar place. She was more interested than anything to see where she had ended up- not many situations were a danger to her anymore, so her little 'episodes' were marked more by curiosity than by fear.

Groping around in the dark, she found a large bulk next to her in the bed. Upon further 'testing', she found parts of it to be cold and hard, while other parts to feel more, well, welcoming. Well, at least she knew where she was now; the room of her partner in crime was just down the hall from her own. She lay there for a few minutes wondering how she should handle this situation. She was just about to leave for her own bed, when the cyborg started moaning in his sleep.

She sat up and stared at him through the dark. This was interesting; she had always wondered what the cyborg dreamed about. Until she had woken him up mid-dream one time, she still wondered if he dreamed at all.

She was ready to let him carry on for a while- after all he had caused her a lot of trouble over the years. Was it really her job to relieve him of a bad dream just because she happened to be in the same room as him while it was going on?

Lying back down, she realized that his bed was much more comfortable than her own. It was nice to get into a bed that was already warm. It had been a long time since anyone had shared a bed with her. She usually killed them first. And after all, it might be a good freak out for Psycho when he woke up and found her in his bed. With these thoughts, she cackled to herself and pulled some of the covers to her side of the bed.

However, after a while she came to realize that getting any sleep with all that noise was next to impossible. Considering her options, and remembering what her mother used to do when she had a bad dream, she moved a little closer to Psycho and put her hand on his forehead. His moans got quieter, then eventually subsided.

Proud of herself, Dragonelle started to move back to her side of the bed, but was stopped when he flung his arms around her and pulled her back towards him. Startled, she turned to look at him- he'd never shown any sign of caring before. Looking up, she was half disappointed to see he was still asleep.

She could've easily shrugged him off, and was about to, but then realized that this awkward kind of embrace actually felt sort of good. No one had hugged her in a very long time. Wondering what in the world she was going to say to him in the morning, she threw caution to the wind and moved closer, snuggling up besides him. Maybe she wouldn't have to spend the rest of her life alone after all.


	4. Airport Fun

A/N: _Okay. I know Mairot is no longer on the N-Tek team. But...um...I'll make up something to explain it later. For now on, just go along with it. K? :-P_

Abigail Dread, Blaine Sarlo, Max Steel, and Kat Ryan were all sitting in the airport together, waiting for their flight. More accurately, they all sat in the same terminal; "together" would have been a bit of a stretch. A more unlikely group would have been hard to find. Max had gathered an enormous amount of cheap food from the overpriced shops and had used his company credit card to pay for it all. Abigail was shrieking at anyone she believed came "too close" to her- meaning if they dared to try and sit in her row of seats, and Blaine sat, smoking, directly under a sign with a clearly crossed out cigarette on it.

Kat looked at them all, and wondered how it was possible that she had ended up here with these strange people. She watched as another airline employee went over to Blaine and asked him to put out his cigarette, but Blaine ignored him and continued smoking as the person grew more and more angry until the man produced a rather loud noise of frustration and stormed off.

"A vital part of this mission is to avoid attention, remember?" Jean Mairot addressed Kat as he appeared out of nowhere.

"I'm doing that. Talk to them," she announced testily.

"They're your team, Ms. Ryan."

"Only that," she said, gesturing to Max, who was then starting on a hot dog as long as his arm.

"Not for this mission."

Kat turned around to answer him, but the older agent had disappeared. She decided that she had to learn how he did that.

"Fine," she said with a sudden determination. Walking over to the three others, snatched the rest of Max's food, and threw it into the garbage with one movement.

"That was-" Max started to protest, but froze at the look Kat gave him.

She then strode over to Blaine and dumped the rest of the water she had been drinking onto his cigarette, extinguishing it immediately. She glowered at him too, challenging him to argue with her. To finish showing her new "team" who the boss was, she then sat down right next to Abigail and stared at her until she looked away.

"So this is what it feels like to be Rachel," Kat mused to herself. She always knew she'd make a good team leader. Who knew? She had been worried at the outset of this trip. For some reason unknown to her Jeff Smith and Nathanson/Dread had both agreed that it was necessary for Abigail to go on this mission. Because Kat and Max were going, and there was only one Abigail (fortunately for everyone), Dread felt the need to even the odds. That was why his bodyguard had been forced to tag along as well. And due to the fact that they had two non N-Tek employees along with them, Smith had required them to take civilian transportation.

Realizing that this whole mission was a fiasco waiting to happen, Smith had sent Mairot to observe the four until they got on their plane. Maddeningly calm throughout the entire wait, he had dropped in a few times to give Kat pointers on how to manage a team. After three hours and no sign of Mairot's continued presence, Kat was confident that he believed her capable and ready for the job at hand.

Snapping out of her self-satisfied thoughts, she looked up and saw the other three making faces at her.. She slumped back down in her seat and sighed. This was going to be a very very long trip.


	5. Security Alert

Jefferson Smith was at first very happy to have an excuse to interrupt his meeting with the CIA officer that wasn't with the CIA. That was before he found out that the reason he had been called away was the finding of his company's logo at the site of an act of terrorism. It was all over the news by now, only two hours after the event, and his PR people had no idea how to handle it. With a glare at the man across the desk, Jeff got up to leave. However, as he got closer to the door he began to hear a commotion coming from the lobby outside. Snapping to attention, he quickly returned to the other side of the room where his desk was and put his hand near the emergency button hidden on the under side. As soon as he pressed it, a building-wide alarm would sound, sending every available operative to his aid.

Picking up on the obvious tension in the room, as well as the commotion outside of it, the other man in the room quickly got out of his chair, moved to a corner not visible from the door, and slid a hand under his jacket. Both prepared to take action as the door busted inwards, but neither were prepared for the person that appeared in the doorway, fuming and dragging a panicking Pete behind her.

To Jeff, the appearance of Josh's girlfriend in the secret part of the N-Tek building was very bad news, seeing as it meant his adopted son's cover was probably blown. However, the man in the corner looked just as nervous as he straightened up and addressed Laura in a surprisingly respectful manner.

"Ms. Chen! I had no idea you'd be coming here today! I was just about to wrap things up here and report back to..."

He was silenced with a deadly glare from the most recent occupant of the room.

Jeff stood by, not knowing whether to be more puzzled by the appearance of Laura Chen in his office, or the fact that she had just been addressed familiarly by a man from the Central Intelligence Agency...as his superior. "...Laura?"

"You've let Josh get involved in this world?!" she yelled at him as Pete escaped from her grasp and went to hide behind the CIA officer.

"I-I'm not sure what you're talking about, or how you even got in here-" Jeff stammered, trying to figure out what in the world was going on.

Laura rolled her eyes. "I've been working for the agency for quite a while. In fact," she gestured towards the man in the corner, "I'm his boss."

Jefferson blinked. "Um...what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Do you really think I could afford my bike on a full-time student's income? We've been keeping our eye on N-Tek since its establishment, but due to confidentiality agreements, we have no access to any of N-Tek's files. So, even though I'm well aware of your involvement, I never knew you would be stupid enough to let Josh get involved in all this! You know how thick-headed he can be!"

Jeff sat down in his chair, unable to process this sudden revelation. His first thought was that this woman standing in front of him was way too young to be where she was in life. However, so was he...

Laura seemed impatient with him. "Look, wherever Josh is right now, you need to get him back here. He is not field agent material and-" hearing a snicker from Pete, she stopped and turned to glare at him. He yelped and tried to hide himself further behind the CIA officer.

Laura slowly turned back to Jeff. "Am I missing something?" she asked slowly.

The N-Tek CEO glanced at his watch and decided that as...fun...as this conversation was sure to be, he had a public relations catastrophe to manage. Thinking quickly, he thought of a solution.

"Pete," he addressed the younger man, trying to sound warm.

Thinking he was off the hook, and that Jefferson was going to save him from Laura, Pete hurried across the room. Smiling hopefully up at Jeff, he asked "Yes, sir?"

Jefferson clapped his hand down on Pete's shoulder in a fatherly manner, turning him back towards Laura. 'Seeing as you have gotten us into this situation, it is your job to stay here and inform Ms. Chen of everything you know about N-Tek's operations."

Pete groaned, and Laura didn't seem to thrilled about the source of her information.

Jefferson began to walk towards the door, then turned around. "No one," he started, with a meaningful look at the man in the black suit, "is to leave this office until I have come back and make sure that everyone is properly briefed and has signed the proper paper work. With that, he opened the door and made a point of locking it from the outside.

His secretary gave him a questioning look as he turned around. "Sir?"

Jefferson just shook his head and began to walk down the hallway towards the conference room. "No more questions."


	6. False Hopes

"So what you're essentially telling me," Laura hissed at a cowering Pete, "is that all you know about N-Tek's operations is that Josh sometimes dyes his hair brown, wears blue contacts, and glows green… and that Jefferson Smith's favorite food is fudge brownies."

"Hey, that last bit's important!" Pete responded defensively.

Laura glared back at him.

"Also that being a scientist in Alaska is dangerous and polar bears are cranky."

The woman who had formerly been nothing more important than a good friend and a slighted girlfriend stared furiously at Pete.

Pete took a chance and smiled nervously, for the first time relieved that Josh had never told him anything useful about N-Tek's operations. He was less grateful that Jefferson Smith had left him locked in an office with Laura Chen and some very nervous looking man in a suit who was currently examining the underside of Smith's desk…Pete decided not to ask why.

Laura, who seemed to have dismissed the last bit of Pete's information- which he happened to find very useful- was staring grimly at the floor. "Just when I thought I finally found someone normal," she muttered. The man under the desk sneezed.

*******

Berto sat nervously in his swivel chair in front of his console, glancing nervously over his left shoulder, than his right, than back again. He had patched into the airport's security cameras to keep an eye on Kat and her team. Of course, the result of this was the presence of both Jefferson Smith and John Dread- it'd always be John Dread to Berto, no matter how many times the man insisted on being called "Marco Nathanson"- watching the screen from behind Berto's chair. Dread rested a hand on the top of Berto's chair, which made him move decidedly back towards Jefferson's side. While Smith intimidated him, he was never sure the man was pondering killing him just for giggles. His eyes were suddenly drawn to the thermal imaging display that constantly displayed a view of Smith's office- Smith insisted on thermal imaging because it could keep tabs on his office while still offering a degree of privacy- also, it picked up things that regular vision didn't- for example, certain trouble-makers in stealth mode.

While Jefferson was currently standing right next to him, there was defiunitely someone in the office…_no_, he thought, leaning closer to the screen to see better, _three someones_.

"Sir?" he addressed the man to his right.

"Yes, Berto?"

"…There are people in your office."

"Yes Berto."

Taking the hint, Berto dropped the matter, noticing as John Dread's reflection on the computer raised an eyebrow.

The three continued watching the "Dread-Tek" team for a few minutes, all looking disgruntled and slightly hostile towards each other as they sat waiting in the airport terminal. After a while, someone got on the loudspeaker and announced the boarding of flight 378, and the four rose and walked to the gate.

John Dread smiled. "They look like they might actually work well together, despite the obvious."

For a second, Jefferson agreed. The way they moved, each vigilant and constantly aware of what the other three were doing, might actually become an advantage. For the first time since Dread had showed up at the base, he felt…hopeful.

But as they watched, Abigail tripped Max, who fell flat on his face, and Blaine put a hand behind his back and flipped off the camera.

"Perhaps I spoke too soon."


	7. Little Defeats

Deciding it was time to deal with other matters before they became too volatile, Jefferson Smith left the console room and started back to his own office. There was no more watching to be done once team "Dread-Tek" was in the air- unfortunately for him. He would very much like to have the excuse of watching the team's antics rather than face the mess he had left locked in his office. However, he couldn't help but chuckling to himself a little as he compared his situation with Berto's. The technician was still in the console room…along with John Dread, who insisted on tracking the aircraft's- and therefore his granddaughter's- whereabouts. This put a little bounce in his step- going to argue with the Central Intelligence Agency, an angry girlfriend, and petrified civilian was nothing compared to trying to work with John Dread staring over your shoulder.

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"Well, this is…fun…" Berto ventured nervously, staring at the little airplane icon that was slowly making its way across the world map on the screen in front of them. Berto shut down the biolink when Max was using civilian air travel to avoid wreaking havoc with all the pilots' equipment, so all they had was the plane's navigation chip to track it with. There was not very much to do or look at it in the meantime, so Berto sat and watched. The plane was flying west from Del Oro Bay to London. The flight would have taken 3 hours if N-Tek had used one of their jets. However they had not used one of their jets. They were flying civilian, and so it would take a full 11 hours to complete the flight…not counting the 2 hour layover in New York. The idea of watching that little icon for a minimum of thirteen hours was not exactly an ideal day for Berto. Usually he would check on it every half an hour or so while playing one computer game or the other. Recently, he had been trying to beat the high score of an old childhood favorite- tetris. That was strange all by itself- one, that Berto was actually struggling to beat a high score in any computer game, and two that the console already had so many games installed on it- all of which had leaderboards full of very hard to beat scores, even though Berto was the first agent to ever have used the room as an office. He'd been working at beating the tetris score for a week now and had only managed to squeak into second place. The inability to get rid of those seemingly taunting "MNTSN" initials had been really getting on his nerves. Who the hell had spent so much company time playing games, anyway?

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Jefferson Smith, ignoring the slightly troubled but mostly curious glances of his secretary, unlocked the door to his makeshift holding cell and strode in confidently. "How's everyone doing?"

Laura was leaning against his desk, arms folded, with a decidedly un-amused expression on her face. Pete and the man from Langley were both sitting in chairs in the corner on the office so close that they might as well be sitting on each other's laps. They looked relieved. Very relieved.

"Look, Mr. Smith," Laura started. "I don't know where you think you get off holding three people against their will, but I'm sure the agency will tell you a thing or two when they hear of this. It's unlawful and I can have this entire operation shut down for that alone, much less for all the-"

Jefferson made a sudden unexpected sound that just might have been a snort.

Laura stopped mid sentence and look incredulously at him. "Mr. Smith, this is not a joke."

Jefferson answered with a broad smile and went to sit in his chair. "Perhaps 'joke' is not the exact word to use, but something close to it might just be applicable."

The woman glared at him expectantly.

"Ms. Chen, do you really think we took no precautions after the last time you tried to shut us down?" He noted the surprised look on her face. "Yes, using the FBI as your little puppet worked at first, but I think we all know who was pulling the strings."

The man in the corner jumped up, realizing that this was a part of the conversation in which he could actually participate. "We can neither confirm or deny anything at this time!"

Laura and Jeff simply stared at him until Pete, still seated, tugged on the man's coat. "Dude, sit back down! Do you really want to drag us into this?!"

The man looked thoughtful for a minute, and then resolutely sat back down.

Laura glared suspiciously at the man in front of her, ignoring her colleague. "What kind of precautions, Mr. Smith?"

For the first time the whole day, Jefferson felt like he had actually won at something. "I'll show you," he said politely as he walked around to the back of his desk. Bending down, he opened the second drawer and pulled out a manila envelope. "After that incident," he said that last word a little harshly, "we appealed to the UN for protection as a worldwide law enforcement agency, having helped out numerous countries around the world many many times. I did have to pull a few strings-" here he smirked as he recalled his conversation with the UN's secretary who happened to be a very dear friend of N-Tek and had absolutely loved the idea, "-but in the end we got what we wanted."

"Which is?" Laura tapped her foot impatiently, looking none too thrilled that Jefferson Smith apparently seemed to think he had an ace up his sleeve. Or, judging from the look on his face, it might even be two…

Jefferson gave a small half-bow as he handed over the envelope to the Laura Chen. "N-Tek is no longer part of the United States. It is it's own entity, separate in laws and regulations. This frees it to act as it sees best for the global community, as well as gives it protection from certain bureaucratic maneuvers.

Laura read the first piece of paper from the envelope completely stunned. There was nothing fake about this at all- signed by all the necessary people, official seal and all. The room was dead silent for a second, as the four occupants felt the tables turn. Jefferson went to settle himself in his big comfy chair and observe.

After flipping through and examining the numerous papers that had been held in the file, Laura finally turned and put it down gently on his desk. "So, what does this mean in regards to the current investigation you seem to still be conducting of two former Dread employees?"

Jefferson spread his hands and smiled. "It means the investigation is alive and well. You might want to see to the wording in your warrants, miss. Quite a few loopholes. Especially when it turns out you didn't know what kind of entity you were dealing with in the first place."

"Well, I am going to return to my headquarters and talk to my higher ups," Laura began, looking solemn, "but it seems as if there is only one course of action here."

The man in the corner looked up, figuring out what her tone meant. Even Pete seemed to realize that something was going on, and looked down from the ceiling, actually putting himself in danger as he looked back and forth from one person the other. "And what's that?" he asked, seemingly involuntarily.

Laura glanced around the room, finally making eye contact with the man in the corner. "Let's go. We have some work to do."

Jefferson Smith's confidence now looked like it may have been edged with some uneasiness as well. "When will I hear from you?"

She turned back to him, taking on a brusque and official manner. "Someone from the agency will be contacting you within the week. In the mean time, you are under direct command to keep my identity as a government employee withheld from everyone except your right hand, whoever that may be." And with that, she gestured for her co-worker to follow her.

The man gave a nod of camaraderie to Pete, and got up to follow. The door closed behind the two, and Pete and Jefferson stared at each other for a few minutes.

"Sooooooo…" Pete started, stretching back in his chair, "that's a very awesome picture of you, sir."

Jeff put his head down on the desk. "Get out, Pete."

Pete left.

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After sitting there doing nothing for about an hour, Berto finally turned to the man who had been staring at him the entire time. "I'm going to play tetris now. You've seen we have absolutely nothing to do, and I am no way ignoring my job."

Dread smiled amusedly, "No need to be so defensive. May I watch?"

Berto felt uneasy, but responded, "Um…sure."

"I used to be a big fan of the games in this building," Dread commented lightly," I even wrote a few of them- ever tried the multi-dimensional chess game?"

Berto froze, unable to speak. The man he despised most in the world had written his very favorite computer game. "Yes," he answered, struggling to keep his voice level, "I've tried it once or twice."

Dread laughed. "I see. Well,. Perhaps I'll go for a walk instead. Let me know if anything of interest occurs- even though I daresay you'll need quite some time and concentration to beat that high score." The man chuckled as he left the room.

Berto sat there for a few minutes, processing the conversation that had just taken place. Then, hesitatingly, he pulled up the leader board for tetris and examined the initials that stood proudly occupying the first place position. MNTSN. Marco Nathanson. His unknown competitor for first place on his varied computer games throughout the last 5 years had been none other than John Dread. Of course. Mirroring Jefferson in the other end of the building, Berto put his head down on his desk, his urge to play tetris completely demolished.


	8. Little Victories

A/N: Booted my muses up to write this chapter now that I know people are reading :P Cheers

Kat was not thrilled with the situation, but it could have been worse. Her new position of power in the team had its benefits. While originally assigned to seat 32B, she had mandated that Max take her seat. She now sat contentedly next to the window while he was scrunched uncomfortably between her and an obese man to the right. John Dread's henchman was seated in the last row on the plane in order to "keep a better eye on things". She didn't really like him so she was all right with having him sit a comfortable distance away from her. Abigail, however, was another matter altogether.

When presenting their boarding passes at the terminal gate everything had gone normally. Once on the plane, however, Abigail had turned around, grinned at Kat, and then pulled a different ticket out of her coat pocket. While the entire team had been assigned coach seats due to John Dread's insistence that they must remain low profile, Abigail had apparently purchased another ticket on her own time. While Kat, Max, and Blaine were escorted to the coach section, Abigail was made comfortable in first class. Of course.

At first this had not been an issue. After all, it was a plane. There was no escaping during the trip. Disembarking, however, might be a different issue. Passengers got off the plane one section at a time, and there was no way Kat was going to allow the risk of just trusting Abigail to stay put and wait for the rest of them to join her. No way in hell was this team's leader allowing that bitch loose in Europe.

Kat had pondered this point for a while- she hadn't rushed, seeing as the flight gave her more than enough time to think about her options. By the time the pilot announced that the plane was approaching its final descent, her plan was done being formulated. She got out of her seat and made her way over to the closest flight attendant and asked in a low whisper "Is there a flight marshal on board?"

The flight attendant looked, as expected, pretty taken aback. "Yes…is there a problem, miss?" The airline employee looked over to where Kat was sitting and gave Max (who had stolen the window seat back in Kat's absence) a wary look. Max smiled broadly and waved.

Following the woman's train of thought, Kat had to stop herself from cracking a smile. As fun as it would be to have someone arrest Max, it would not help her strategy. "Well, you see I work with the Public Health Department," here she flashed her N-Tek badge in a careless manner- people saw a badge and obeyed. They never bothered to actually read the damn thing. "I'm escorting a young lady to a mental health institute in London- she lived in the U.S. for a number of years, but her family has decided it would be best to have her back where they can keep a better eye on her…unstable, you know? Anyway, there is a very big chance that where she's going they're not going to let her out for a while so I let her sit in first class as a gift- sweet girl, really, she couldn't help what happened…" Kat trailed off here and looked pensively toward one of the airplane's windows.

The flight attendant was looking more uneasy by the second. "What exactly…um…happened, miss?"

Kat sighed. "It was her other personality. You see, she has no control over herself when the other personality takes over. It wasn't her fault at all." Kat returned to her thoughtful gaze.

"Other personality…?"

"Yes, well, to make a long…very long…story short, she went berserk in her housing complex and killed 19 people. "

The flight attendant made a strangled noise. "19?!"

"Yes. So, you see it would really comfort me if she could be restrained before the plane lands. Discretely, mind you, but I can't take the chance of having her getting off the plane before me and bolt. So, if your marshal could take care of that I would greatly appreciate it. I really think it would be best for everyone…just in case, you know?"

The flight attendant stared at her for a few seconds, and then snapped out of it. "Of course! It'll be taken care of right away. Standard procedure for situations like this has the subject locked up in the restroom where the other passengers won't be alerted to what's going on."

Kat smiled broadly. "That will do very nicely, thank you."

The woman was all business now. "If you could just remain at your seat until the rest of the passengers are off the plane, we shall hand over custody at that point."

"Thank you," Kat nodded briskly and returned to her seat. She was so pleased with herself, she even let Max keep the window.

Dread's hired man had been observing this exchange from the back of the plane. He couldn't hear what exactly was going on, but he had definitely noted the satisfied smirk on Kat's face when she had turned away from the flight attendant. Interest piqued, he sat back, finished his drink and watched.

Hearing Kat snicker, Max looked away from the window. "…Kat?"

Kat turned and smiled at him. Something was definitely up.

"Um…what's going on, Kat?"

"There's been a change in plans. When this plane lands, I'm going to stay here. You're going to get off the plane and wait for Blaine to get off. Make sure you don't miss him…I don't think he'll try to sneak away, but you really never know with Dread's people. Anyway, you guys go to the hotel and check in…quietly. Abigail and I are going to meet you there a little later."

"Kat, that wasn't the plan.

"Plans change, Steel. Get used to it.

"Kat you can't just-" Max's protest was interrupted with an indignant shriek from the front of the plane. He jumped up, hitting his head on the low ceiling.

Kat rolled her eyes and pulled him back into his seat. "Part of the plan," she whispered conspiratorially.

Max looked unsure, but stayed seated anyway, deciding to see where this was going to go. He had recognized the shriek, after all.

It was not long before two people- a reasonably large burly man accompanied by a nervous looking smaller man appeared escorting a dazed redhead. They made their way to the nearest restroom, deposited Abigail inside, and after some clinking of handcuffs, closed the door behind them.

"Nothing to worry about folks," the burly man waved jovially at the watching passengers. "Just gets airsick, that's all!" He then made his way back to his seat, nodding slightly at Kat as he passed her.

Max looked back and forth between the man and Kat, astonished. "Did you-"

"Yep."

"She's been locked up in a bathroom."

"Yep."

"Awesome."

Kat winked and held up her can of soda. "Cheers."


	9. Retrieval

After that, the aircraft landed without incidence. The passenger up front filed off the plane, and when it got to Max and Kat's row, she nodded at him while staying where she was. "See you later."

Max looked like he wanted to say something, but instead nodded back and stood up. Knowing that one fourth of their team was watching him from the back of the cabin, he nodded again to no one in particular and made his way towards the front to disembark with the other passengers. Kat watched the rest of the people walk past her as she pretended to search for something in her bad. Sarlo, the last one off, glanced at her with what seemed like regret. She stared back at him, suddenly uncomfortable with the situation, but it was too late to turn back now. Abigail needed to be collected. Once everyone else had left, the air marshal and stewardess she had spoken to came to meet her.

"This way please," the woman addressed her in a business-like manner.

Kat nodded, struggling to keep a straight face. She wondered what John Dread would have to say about this.

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Abigail herself didn't have much to say at the moment. She didn't have much to think either. In fact, all she did think was how badly she just wanted for everything to stop moving. The plotting of revenge would come later.

As if on cue, the door to the bathroom unlocked with a painful click and slid open, presenting a very smug looking Kat Ryan. As if it would have been anyone else.

"We put a tranquilizer in her champagne- standard procedure for first class cases," a large man commented fuzzily. Or maybe there were two large men- she couldn't tell. Twins, maybe? She giggled.

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Following the girl's gaze, Kat found she was staring at the air next to the marshal. _Definitely time to go_, she thought.

"Well, thank you for your assistance, I will be sure to include your cooperation in my report. If you could just uncuff her, we'll be on our way."

"Of course." The air marshal unlocked the chains linking Abigail and the handbar in the restroom and brought her to a standing position. He began to loosen his grip, but Abigail did not seem ready to stand on her own just yet. "Um…maybe I should assist you getting her through the terminal."

"Oh don't worry about that," Kat replied cheerfully, waving him off. And with that she wrapped her arm around Abigail's shoulders and held her up as the two slowly shambled off the plane together, looking like the best of friends.

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Meanwhile, Max had gotten off the plane and found a good place from which he could observe the passengers get off the plane. He had only been there for two minutes when he heard someone behind him. Spinning around to catch whoever it was that had surprised him, he found himself face to face with Blaine.

"Ready to go?" the man asked softly.

"Um…yeah." Max didn't know how the man had managed to avoid being seen, but didn't dwell on it for too long. When one was still an amateur in the international secret agent trade, being surprised by more experienced people became common place.

Blaine waited for Max to take the lead. After a few seconds, however, the younger man had failed to do so.

Blaine cleared his throat. "All right then. I assume Kat has some sort of plan?" he asked coaxingly.

Max snapped back to attention. "Yeah. We're supposed to go to the hotel and wait there for the two of them. She figured she'll be a little while before she can meet us. There's a company car waiting for us in the long term parking lot."

"Lead the way."

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As the tranquilizer began to wear off more and more, Abigail, or course, became more and more indignant. While she still wasn't ready to walk on her own, she was, apparently, able to recognize her ability to impede Kat's progress. Dragging her feet, or letting her body go limp was an easy way to trip up her escort…literally.

After putting up with this for a while, Kat grabbed an unattended wheelchair and shoved the brat into it. She had been expecting some payback, so she wasn't as annoyed as she could have been, but that sure didn't mean she was happy about things. Looking up briefly to survey the crowd, she could see that the two of them were attracting a good amount of attention from bystanders. Terrific. Her only consolation was that the other half of their team was probably having a lot easier time of not getting noticed.

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"Here it is," Max looked up as he reached the specified parking spot. A black Audi sat waiting for them. "Not bad," he grinned. He took a few eager steps towards the driver's side and then stopped. "Um…do you want to drive?" he asked in the polite way of someone who really wanted to hear a negative answer.

The other man grinned. "Nah, you can have this one."

Max's face lit up. "Sweet!"

Blaine got into the passenger side and strapped himself in. _Here we go_, he thought. While Max was busy guiding the car out of the lot, the passenger began fiddling with his cell phone. A minute later, he seemed to lose interest, and put it in his jacket pocket. Making sure Max was distracted with traffic, he casually reached under his seat and felt the object he'd been looking for taped there, just as it was supposed to be. It seemed John Dread was a man who could be counted on.


	10. The Lines Are Drawn

Normally, Rachel would have been thrilled to find an enormous vase of lilies on her desk, however, this particular bunch came accompanied by one former head of N-tek.

"Marco, I do believe I asked you to stop appearing in my office without an invitation."

"I may recall you having said something of the sort," he responded, smirking a little.

Rachel sat down with a sigh. Marco Nathanson was not a man who was easily dismissed. "I'm really very busy."

The man leaned back in his chair. "Yes, I've realized you've seemed extraordinarily busy lately. So busy that I don't think I've seen you more than two times since I've come to stay here."

"Well, that can hardly be helped," Rachel replied dismissively while shuffling a small stack of papers.

"I would even go so \far as to say you've been avoiding me."

Rachel put the stack of papers back where they had originated.

"I was just curious as to the exact reason for it. Remorse, maybe?

"No," she stated firmly, looking up to stare back at him. "It's because I've realized from the moment you stepped foot on this base that you don't plan on leaving."

Nathanson leaned forward, looking interested. "And how could you possibly know that?"

"When you look around here, when you stroll through the halls, when you sit in these chairs, you're not someone who is taking a trip down memory lane. You're not someone who is amused at the irony of the situation. You're someone who thinks he is back where he belongs."

Nathanson smiled benignly at her. "You always were the clever one, Rachel."

"Obviously not clever enough. If I had been, I would have put a stop to things as soon as I saw that look on your face the first time. But I did not. I allowed you to get more and more comfortable. I did not say a word as you brought that man into N-Tek. Nor when I began seeing your granddaughter creeping around in restricted areas. Not even when you brought Jean Mairot back into the picture- something which, I assure you, has caused many people here much discomfort."

"I've requested that Jean keep a low profile. He is, however, very useful."

"That's not the point."

"Then what exactly are you saying, my dear?"

"Marco Nathanson, John Dread, I don't believe your main purpose here is to capture Psycho and Dragonelle. I believe you are going to try and take back control of N-Tek."

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Laura Chen fumed as she made her up the last of many flights of stairs, the suit bedecked man following silently after her. The elevator had mysteriously refused to function.

"What's our plan of action?" he finally asked, knowing his superior would be in a slightly better mood now that the ending of the stairs was near.

"Our plan of action is to enact counterespionage measures against N-Tek. They have separated themselves from the United States, and we are therefore allowed to go after them once they've been proven as a threat."

"And how do we go about doing that?"

"There must be something…can you put that on silent or something???"

The man had been fiddling with his PDA most of the way up the stairs…which had been a very long time. "I'm trying to help out the investigation. I've been slowly leeching information from their network- it's been difficult, and I've only been able to get small pieces in each area- someone's obviously very good at keeping out snoops, but we are *the* snoops."

Chen sighed in relief as she opened the door to the parking garage and felt a fresh breeze come in through the garage door. "That we are. What are you working on?"

The man was greatly relieved by the change in tone. Laura Chen was someone he was proud to work for- she really was a great person…as long as you shared her goals and didn't make her angry. "I'm getting the list of all non-personnel admitted to the building within the last year. In their line of work, they must deal with *some* questionable characters- god knows we do."

"Do you honestly think they'd be dumb enough to leave that information available?" 

"It's worth a try. They're probably not even aware of most of the lower profile cons we keep tabs on." He continued fiddling as they made their way towards the visitors' end of the lot. "I've been scanning the list as I get information…you can tell how slow it's going, and so far I haven't found any-" he suddenly stopped in his tracks, staring at the device. "Oh you're going to love this."

Laura turned to face him, raising an eyebrow.

"You may recall a certain rogue trainee we had a few years back. Learned everything we would teach him, excelled, and then robbed us blind."

Recognition slowly dawned on Laura's face. "That's right. Stole everything he could get his hands on. Weapons, armor, ammunition, even some prototype merchandise that never made it anywhere- shirts and coffee mugs. We still don't know how he got away with it."

"Do you remember his name?"

Chen narrowed her eyes. "Of course I do. Blaine D. Sarlo."

The man turned the PDA towards her so that she could see the name currently displayed on the screen. "He's been in and out here for months."

Laura smiled victoriously. "I believe we have us some motivation. I don't care how much the UN loves their little pet agency, there's no denying this- Sarlo's been on our list for years."

The man grinned back. "Let's go declare war."


	11. Things Fall Apart

"Turn left up here." Blaine had been giving Max turn-by-turn directions since they left the parking lot. Max had been enjoying driving the car so much that he hadn't seemed to notice that they'd been driving for almost half an hour and there was still no hotel in sight. He hadn't questioned Blaine's directions once- not even now, as the buildings were becoming progressively more sparse, as Berto was "mysteriously" unable to contact max via biolink.

"Hold on...where are we?" Max had apparently finally begun to realize that they were no longer in the middle of the city.

The car's passenger almost breathed a sigh of relief. Although his job would now be made a little harder, he no longer had the feeling of one who was leading a child into a slaughterhouse.

"We're not going to the hotel, Mr. Steel. Keep driving."

Max pulled the car over by the side of the road and turned to look at Blaine as if seeing him for the first time.

Blaine stared back coolly. "I didn't say you could pull over."

Max rolled his eyes. "Well, unfortunately you're not in charge here."

"Yes, he responded softly, "I am." Reaching under the seat, he pulled loose the gun that John Dread had left for him. Pointing it at Max's head, he turned off the safety with a click, and cocked the gun. "Now, drive."

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Apparently three hours was more than enough time for Abigail to have emptied the minifridge of its contents. Not that she actually ate all of it; she seemed to enjoy opening packets of $20 cashews just to try one and toss the rest onto the sofa. Not surprisingly, she didn't seem to give a damn about what was going on. Kat was not in the same state.

"I want surveillance footage of the airport terminal, hallways, parking lots, everywhere the two of them would have been between the time they got off the plane and the time they disappeared," she paced back and forth as she barked into her cell phone. On the other end of the line, scrambling noises were heard as the man in charge of airport security did his best to get everything she wanted as fast as she wanted it.

After 30 seconds, there was still no word from him. "What's going on?"

The other end of the line was silent a while longer, followed by "This isn't good."

Kat forced herself to keep her voice steady. "Tell me."

"Somehow all of today's security tapes have been erased. All of them from midnight last night until now. None of the cameras are recording. It's all just fuzz. This doesn't just happen accidentally- not in an airport as big as this one. Someone did this deliberately."

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"Berto Martinez, Marco Nathanson, my office. Now."

Jefferson Smith hadn't sat down for the last hour- when he was alerted that half of team Dread-Tek had disappeared. While he had chewed out Kat Ryan for waiting two hours to alert him that things were amiss, he was not actually angry with her. Operatives were supposed to exhaust every option before contacting him- and he knew she must have spent those two hours doing everything she possibly could without backup from the home team. However, two hours was a very long time. And three was even longer.

He didn't have long to wait- Berto was in his office in two minutes, red-faced and out of breath. "Marco Nathanson" sauntered in fifteen minutes later, seemingly amused at the enraged expression on Jefferson Smith's face.

"I assume this meeting isn't to discuss the quality of the beverages in this facility?"

Jefferson closed his eyes and counted to ten. Didn't help. "Sit down before I kill you, Marco."

John Dread nodded, still looking amused, and sat down.

"Martinez, has Kat told you about the situation yet?"

Berto shook his head slowly. "No sir."

Jefferson sighed. He wasn't sure to be more relieved that his employees hadn't been keeping him out of the loop, or more worried that the one person who had the best chance of finding their operatives still had no knowledge of the situation three hours after they'd gone missing.

"All right then. Our situation is this. Operatives Steel and Sarlo disembarked at Heathrow Airport at approximately 16:00 local time. They were scheduled to meet up with operatives Ryan and... Dread... at 16:30 at the prearranged hotel. Ryan and Dread were there at the designated time with no sign of the other two. Officer Ryan contacted me at 19:30- there has been no sign of Steel and Sarlo since then. Security cameras at the airport have apparently been knocked offline- no record of Steel or Sarlo anywhere in the airport. Martinez, I'm guessing the biolink's been down?"

"Yes sir. At first I thought it was just a side effect of being out of commission for so long, but now that you've informed me of the situation, it would make sense if it was being jammed."

"Have you tried his cellphone?" Nathanson asked, rolling his eyes.

Jefferson and Berto stared at the third man.

Nathanson seemed to mentally hit himself in the head. "Right. He's never really needed one, has he."

"Moving on," Jefferson addressed Berto again. "The vehicle they were supposed to take had a gps locater on it. Has it moved?"

"No sir, still in the assigned parking place- the vehicle was never picked up."

The head of N-Tek sighed. "As I suspected. I think at this point, it's a safe assumption to think that Dragonelle and Psycho may have had something to do with this. It looks like someone was ready for us. Best plan of action right now is to-"

"What kind of car was it?" Dread interjected, sounding entertained.

Jefferson glared at him. "If you must know, it was a standard N-Tek company car. We didn't want anything too flashy that would tempt thieves."

"Perhaps if you'd have given them a better car, they would have taken it," he answered with a smirk.

Smith stared at him. "You, out. Martinez, stay."

John Dread stood up and stretched leisurely. "If you insist."

"I do."


	12. A New Era

They only had to drive a few more minutes until Blaine directed Max to stop in front of an old worn down warehouse. It obviously had not been used for years, and Max supposed that it would be more than a few years before it was ever used again.

"We're here."

"So I guess you want me to get out of the car?"

"You catch on quick."

Max unbuckled his seat belt, but remained in the driver's seat. "So what happens if I don't do what you want me to?"

Blaine, who had not turned the gun away from Max since he had first taken it out, patted it, smiled and said "Then I would have to shoot and make your head explode. Like zombies, you know?"

Max stared back at him for a few seconds before finally opening the car door and getting out. "You know you're messed up in the head, don't you?"

Blaine seemed to ponder this for a moment, then nodded. "It's crossed my mind a couple of times."

"Well, as long as we're on the same page here," Max muttered under his breath.

In this time, the passenger had also gotten out of the car, and walked forward to stand beside Max, gun still positioned. He nodded towards the warehouse. "In there. Let's go."

Max obeyed, walking forward slowly, giving himself time to think. They were going to be in an abandoned warehouse. There could potentially be an opportunity to find some kind of weapon to help his case. He could chance running if he absolutely had to, but bullets were a risky business. When asked, Max opened the door and slowly went inside, trying to be inconspicuous as he searched his surroundings for something he could use.

The door closed behind them and Max was caught off guard with a strong kick from behind him. Landing sprawled out on the floor, he was able to turn himself over just in time to see Blaine press a button on his cell phone.

"I thought that didn't work," Max accused.

"It doesn't. Not as a cell phone anyway."

"What is it then?"

"Something familiar. Mr. Dread informs me that you've encountered EMPs a few times already."

Max blinked, slightly confused. "Why are you using one of those?"

Blaine lowered the gun to his side. "I'm not here to kill you Max."

"Then who?"

Blaine pressed the "send" button on the phone and tossed it over to where Max was. "I'm sorry."

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Rachel had just about made up her mind to go down to Jefferson's office and tell him everything she knew. Actually, more speculated than knew, but N-Tek didn't often question her hunches. She knew Jeff wouldn't be happy to hear what she had to say; people in positions of power never wanted to hear that they had been wrong- even though the entirety of the current situation was more or less Rachel's fault. She stalled at this thought, but then got over it. It *was* her fault, and that made it *her* responsibility to fix it.

At the same moment as she got up from her chair, there was a polite knock on the door. As little as Rachel Leeds wanted visitors at the current moment, she doubted she would have a choice in the matter.

"Come in."

She was only partially surprised when Mairot opened the door and let himself into the room.

"Good evening Rachel."

She nodded briskly to acknowledge him. "Jean."

"May I sit down?"

"If it's necessary."

Jean sat down in the visitor's chair, and gestured that he would like her to sit as well.

"How have you been, Rachel?"

"I've been better. Particularly before all of you showed up."

"I'm very deeply sorry to hear that."

"I'm sure."

Mairot did not respond to her dry retort.

Rachel sighed. "What can I do for you, Jean?"

"He wanted me to talk to you."

Rachel crossed her arms across her chest. "About what?"

"A new world order."

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Jefferson had stopped talking and started pacing 15 minutes ago. Now, he suddenly turned to Bero.

"What do you think we should do, Martinez?"

Berto, not at all used to being asked his opinion on matters of strategy, had to work to gather his thoughts for a moment.

"Well, sir," he started slowly and carefully, "I've been monitoring the computer present at their London hideout, and it seems that they're still active there. We have a location. I would think the best strategy would be to capture Psycho and Dragonelle. Even if Max and Blaine aren't there, Psycho will give anything to save his own skin…and it will be helpful to just know where and who Dragonelle is."

Jefferson nodded. "Good."

Berto thought for another moment. "We *will* need significantly more manpower than usual, sir. Max is generally the only one that can take on Pycho and he's currently out of commission.

"I'm sending everyone I have."

"Is that wise, sir?"

"Probably not, but the chances of this base being attacked while they're gone are slim. Besides, this whole truce thing does have its benefits."

"If you say so…"

Jefferson processed Berto's hesitation and knew it was appropriate, but his son was in danger. That's all there was to it. Pressing a button on his phone, he spoke into the handset. "All available operatives report to the hangar for briefing immediately."

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Soon after, Jefferson Smith was explaining the mission to over 100 ready and willing operatives. He realized that his was no longer counter-terrorism. This was full our war. He could not remember the last time he had simultaneously sent out more than 10 agents…even before Max Steel. Things sure were changing.

After he was done and had stepped off the platform, he was greeted by a slightly out of breath Rachel Leeds.

"Brilliant speech, sir."

"Thank you, Rachel…weren't you wearing that red sweater of yours today?" Respectful as he was to women, as a man he was still prone to noticing when a female co-worker of his wore a highly flattering sweater.

"Yes, I was, but I spilled coffee on myself and had to change."

Jefferson just nodded. If he'd had less on his mind, he would have realized that he'd never in 10 years seen Rachel spill anything. However, in the current situation, he didn't give it a second thought.


	13. Permission Granted

Three hours had been enough for Laura Chen and her colleague to return to the temporary base their organization had set up to deal with 'the N-Tek situation'. Chen had explained her plan to their director. He had been less than impressed.

"So let me get this straight," he said, leaning back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, "you not only want to put into motion a plan to shut down a UN-established international peace-keeping organization, but you also want authorization to use deadly force."

"Yes."

"All because they've had contact with someone you have a grudge against for stealing some coffee mugs that we weren't even going to use?"

"While the presence of Blaine Sarlo is certainly an aggravating factor, not exactly. N-Tek working with him was proving the fact that N-Tek is not on our side, and cannot be trusted- something we've suspected for years now. However, now Jefferson Smith is planning on staging a hostile takeover of an independent European base, and this cannot be allowed to stand. Someone has to put their foot down, and that's going to have to be us."

The man in the chair looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or object. "You are aware, Ms. Chen, that the 'European base' in question is one run by two terrorists that we've been trying to take down all year?"

Laura grinned. "Show me where they're listed as enemies of the United States."

The man in the chair looked puzzled. "You know better than anyone that we were unable to obtain information on either suspect, as N-Tek has the only existing files. We can't officially declare them as anything without the necessary paperwork…oh."

"Now you've got it. We've never declared them as terrorists, enemy combatants, or anything of the sort. So, on paper, N-Tek is attacking an independent European base."

The man in the chair seemed to now be assessing her sanity. "Are you actually saying we should take offensive measures against N-Tek?"

"Yes. And more so than last time."

"What do you mean, exactly? Shutting them down isn't enough?"

"If we can prove that they themselves are terrorists, we can lock them up for good. Make sure they can't provide a valid defense and piece themselves back together. We can even offer deals to the more…gifted…ones and have them work for us."

Her superior put his hands over his face and leaned back once more. "I should have known this would come back to Max Steel."

"N-Tek can't control him! He's reckless and constantly in danger, and we can help him improve. Tell me you wouldn't want all those superhuman powers on *our* side. We can keep him safe and help the country at the same time."

"Well if you only want to capture them, why the request for deadly force authorization?"

"Not all of them would prove useful."

"I see. Well…"

"We will, of course, make an attempt to take prisoners first."

The man's final answer was halted by the ringing of the desk phone. Laura Chen glanced at the wall clock- it was 7:00 PM- slightly outside of office hours. The look of dread the man gave the phone interested her indeed, but now was not the time to stick her nose in where it didn't belong.

The man waved, dismissing her with one hand. "Do what you will. There are other situations to be dealt with in this point in time."

Laura nodded briskly, refusing to let any enthusiasm show through, turned on her heel, and strode back out the door.

Her ever-loyal ally was waiting in the hallway leaning up against the wall and tapping away at his PDA. Upon hearing her leave the office, he looked up excitedly.

His superior grinned. "Let's get a team together."


	14. I Don't Think I'm Ready for Two of You

Rachel stood by Jeff's side, as akways, as the N-Tek agents orderly boarded the waiting jets. Being his second in command, she no longer went on missions- she needed to not be placed in any unnecessary danger if it could be helped. If anything were to happen to Smith, she would need to take over. The doctor was always warning him that he was a heart attack waiting to happen with his high stress life and poor eating habits, and at every stressful situation (which for him were constant occurrences), he wondered if this would be the time his body would finally betray him.

Kat was the last one to board. Before she got on the plane, she turned and gave Jeff and Rachel a quick wave. Jeff nodded in response. Out of all his agents, Kat had improved the most quickly. An agent who had been so stiffly independent was now leading a group the size of a platoon. he was so proud of her. The two N-Tek execs watched as the small fleet left the hangar and took off.

"Well," Jeff said, turning to Rachel after a minute, "what do we do now?" He had been relying on her more and more the past year- he told himself it was for training purposes, getting her used to making decisions, but really he had just been so relieved to finally have someone to lean on. It was nice not to make every decision and hard call in a perpetual game of russian roulette.

"I was planning on checking if Berto needs any help." Rachel paused, and studied Jefferson's face. "I think you might be best off going to your office and resting. I'll let you know if anything happens."

Jeff nodded. "Thank you Rachel."

She smiled. "No problem."

Rachel stayed where she was, watching the N-Tek planes flying over the ocean. She observed out of the corner of her eye as her superior turned and slowly left the hangar. Once he was gone, she left as well, heading towards Berto's area of the base.

Paying attention to the placement of surveillance cameras, he waited until the time was right, then turned down a rarely-sed hallway. John Dread had granted her admission to his impenetrable fortress, still left undisturbed after the many years since he had run N-Tek.

After she entered her information, the door swung open surprisingly quickly, considering its size. She let herself in and felt the door pull silently shut behind her. Looking around the room, she saw that it was exactly the same as when she'd left it. Apart from one addition.

"Hello there, Ms. Leeds."

The other occupants of the room, namely Jean Mairot and John Dread, chuckled as the Rachel in the room's holding cell was silent for the first time since being abducted from her office.

"Dragonelle?" she asked tentatively.

John Dread shook his head as the Rachel Leeds at the door stayed still and expressionless.

"No, Ms. Leeds. My dear Dragonelle is otherwise occupied at teh moment."

Rachel glared at him. "Then who," she demanded, "is that."

"Come now," John Dread chided. "Do you really not recognize Eleanor?"

Rachel blanched at this. "Eleanor and Jet were destroyed at the explosion of your base when we went to retrieve Max and Berto. Both clones were dead."

"Presumed dead," Dread corrected pointedly. "My colleague went to search for survivors, and found Eleanor."

Mairot nodded once in silent acknoledgment.

"She needed patching up, but we were able to help her."

"Unlike N-Tek, who left me to rot." Eleanor added softly.

Rachel looked up at her pleadingly. "There was no way we could have known! The state that base was in...we had to assume there were no survivors."

"N-Tek would have searched for Jet and I if it had considered u real people."

Rachel looked outarged. "You know that isn't true!"

"Do I?"

Rachel strained against the bars of her cell in frustration, but knew nothing she said would have made a difference. She let herself calm down for a minute, then asked "What about Kat's cl- I mean Jet?"

Eleanor smiled grimly as Rachel's unintentional choice of words proved her point. "Kat's clone," she sneered, "didn't make it. They didn't get to her on time."

Rachel nodded. The chances of both clones having survived was very unlikely.

Before the conversation could progress any further, John Dread nodded to Eleanor. "Does Smith suspect anything?"

Eleanor seemed to snap to attention upon being addressed by him. "Nothing, sir."

Dread nodded in approval. "Good. I now want you to start working with Martinez. Make sure he's on the right track. Tell him a contact from Interpol provided you with some information. Make sure every one involved has enough time to accomplish what they must."

Eleanor nodded, eyes gleaming, and quickly left the room.

"What are you up to, John Dread," Rachel asked unsurely.

Dread turned his head and winked at her good-naturedly. "Let's just hope our Mr. Smith enjoys wild goose."


	15. Confusion in the Ranks

"Hello Berto."

Berto looked away from the console and gave Rachel a tired smile. "Hey Rahcel, what's up?"

"New information from Interpol. We are now placing Psycho and Dragonelle in Denmark. We think they've been staking out a new target."

Berto looked over at her, frowning. "N-Tek's been sure of the lair in London for some time now…We've had computer activity there as recent as this morning."

Rachel came closer and put one hand on the back of Berto's chair. "Try thermal imaging. Should show us if they are there at the moment or not," she said, turning the chair back to facing the console.

Looking thoughtful, Berto tapped a few keys and redirected one of N-Tek's surveillance satellites into the desired location.

After a few minutes of scanning, Berto sat back. "Huh."

"No non-electronic activity for at least 24 hours- the base is cold," Rachel reported, surveying the scanning results.

Berto looked thoughtful. "I guess they could've just programmed the computer to keep running on a scheduled basis to confuse us…Thanks for the info, Rachel. I didn't think Interpol was still friendly with us."

Rachel laughed. "With N-Tek? No, not at all. With Rachel Leeds? Yes. I have a cousin there."

Berto looked impressed. "You never mentioned that before."

"It never came up," Rachel smiled. "You should probably let Kat know about the new development."

"I'll do it now."

Rachel started out the door, then turned back to Berto. "By the way, where's Abigail been? I haven't seen her since she got here with Kat, and she's a person I like to keep close track of."

Berto nodded, trying not to laugh. "We had Yevshenko lock her up in one of the psych-rooms. Very cozy."

Rachel nodded, also trying to stay serious. "Well that's certainly good to know. Thanks Berto."

Berto nodded and waved, and as Rachel left the room she heard what she was hoping for.

"Hey Kat, we have a change in location. Sending the coordinates now."

And then a few minutes later: "Thanks Martinez, we'll send half to the original location and half to the new one. I want to cover all the bases."

Laura Chen's favorite co-worker had been listening in on N-Tek's frequency all day- something that was no small feat, as their tech guy seemed to have scrambled it very effectively. If they had not had the amount of surveillance equipment as was called for as part of their job, they probably would have lost track.

Laura thought it might be advantageous to offer whoever was responsible a job after N-Tek was demolished. She didn't know how it was going to be done, but she knew that she would be the one to do it.

She was expecting it to take weeks to overhear something useful. Maybe even months. What she wasn't prepared for, however, was for her partner to burst through the door that very minute.

Catching his breath, he looked up and grinned triumphantly. "You're not going to believe this."

Eleanor had to work very hard to keep a smile of her own off her face as she strode down the hallway grimly- just in case anyone was watching.

Entering the Medbay, she greeted Dr. Yevshenko with a nod. "Good afternoon, Doctor."

The other woman smiled Rachel. "Hello Rachel, how are you?"

"I'm all right, considering the circumstances. I just came to let you know that one of our low-security inmates is experiencing some trouble breathing. Mr. Smith would like you to check up on him… we don't want anyone dying."

"Of course," she responded with a smile, gesturing towards the empty room. "We seem to be patient-free at the moment anyway."

Rachel looked around the room and saw she was right- every single bed was empty. _Or available_, Rachel thought. The space to accommodate many injured seemed apt.

"I'll stay here and look after things for you- just in case."

"Thank you, Rachel. I shouldn't be long."

Rachel nodded and sat down in one of the swivel chairs as Yevshenko grabbed her medical kit and tucked a small gun under her labcoat.

She waited two minutes to make sure the doctor would not come back to retrieve something she may have forgotten. Then she stood up and casually made her way to the back of the lab- where the psychiatric patients were kept. All cells were about 16 square feet, foam walls (soft as well as soundproof) and a door with a small window.

Abigail, not at all thrilled to be placed where she was, sat in the corner of her cell scowling. She would have a talk with her grandfather when this was all said and done. She was done with being locked up. Figuring out which person to best take her revenge on, she was surprised to look up and see the face of Rachel Leeds looking back at her.

Even less expected was when the face winked at her, and then opened the door.

Abigail stood up and left the cell, smiling sweetly. "So nice to see you, Eleanor."

In the cockpit of the N-Tek fleet's main aircraft, Kat watched the horizon. The flight would only be three hours long for them, but it seemed to be taking an eternity. She had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew something was wrong, but she also knew that whatever it was, she was most likely powerless to stop it.

The N-Tek forces were going to be split into two- one half going to the coordinates they had been given in Denmark- Psycho and Dragonelle had been seen recently exiting the basement of a small abandoned building- they could only hope Max would be there. The other half would be going to the known hideout near London- if the Denmark tip didn't pan out the other team might be able to find something useful to help them out.

Kat had originally been confident in the plan for everyone to stay together- no one but Max had fought Psycho and won…ever…but she wasn't worried with the entirety of N-Tek's field agents going after him together. But now? Now there was only half…she liked those odds less. A lot less.

Seeming to sense her tension, Jake Nez put a hand on her shoulder. "All we need to concentrate on now is taking down Psycho and getting Max back…and Dread's guy if we have time."

Kat cracked a smile, but said nothing.

Jake sighed and leaned against one of the craft's walls. "I know. I feel it too. There's a storm coming."

Kat looked back at him, and Nez saw something in her eyes that he wasn't used to- insecurity. Whatever happened today, it was on her shoulders. He did not envy her.

It wasn't long after leaving the medlab that the door opened to Dread's temporary base of operations and Abigail skipped in, followed by a supremely smug Eleanor.

The red head settled herself into one of the big comfy chairs that, of course, were there and smiled at Dread. "So, can I have turbo boy's job?"

Dread frowned, but said nothing.

Abigail smirked. "You had to have realized I would find out- hiring that creep Blaine? You weren't fooling anyone. I know how you hired him to take care of Steel."

Dread glanced at Rachel, who was listening intently, and cleared his throat.

Looking over at Rachel, Abigail rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on who's *she* going to tell?"

Not forgetting the look of smugness on Eleanor's face, Dread turned to her. "What's the good word?"

She smiled broadly. "We really couldn't have planned it better ourselves."

"Do tell."

"Well, instead of sending all the forces to the new location, they've decided to split up."

He chuckled. "Well, if they see fit to increase the confusion amongst themselves, who am I to stop them?"

Mairot returned to the room them and nodded at Dread. "Contact from Sarlo. He's en route."

The laughter gone from his face, Dread nodded once and stayed silent as his employee came and took the chair next to him. "Eleanor, I'd like you to gather information as events unfold. It will seem suspicious if Ms. Leeds is missing during this time."

Eleanor nodded once then left.

Rachel felt an enormous sense of panic building up inside of her. Something was about to happen, and she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

Taking in the expression on her face, Dread stood up and walked towards the cell. "Don't worry, my dear. *You're* perfectly safe."

Draping her legs over one of the arms of the chair, Abigail leaned backwards to watch her grandfather. "So what do we do now?"

Dread was continuing to hold Rachel's gaze and didn't respond. He was observing the pieces falling into place in the agent's mind and it fascinated him. He knew she would understand eventually.

Mairot answered instead. "Now, we wait."


	16. Battlefield

It was not long before the plane landed and it was time for Kat's team to get off. She had been hoping more than a little that she'd have more time to put off doing something that would risk the lives of others. This was exactly why she preferred to act alone. At least that way she could only get herself killed. She'd even got used to working with Max, but only because he was pretty much indestructible. She didn't have to worry much about him. These people, however, were all too human. Most of them had families. And all of them could die.

Her rapidly growing panic was suddenly halted in its tracks by a firm grip on her shoulder.

"Kat, are you ready?"

Looking up, she was somehow immediately calmed by Jake Nez's steady gaze. His quiet confidence was contagious.

She stood up, strapping on her Kevlar over her usual N-Tek uniform. "Always ready. Let's go."

Kat was first off the plane, closely followed by Nez. Suddenly realizing what was going on, she spin to face him. "Jeff assigned you to watch me, didn't he?"

"Not watch. Just protect."

"I don't need protecting," she spat with all the anger she could muster.

"As a team leader, you do. You are the least expendable person here, and I have to make sure you don't take unnecessary risks with your safety."

"Why didn't Jefferson just make you team leader?"

Nez put a hand on her shoulder. "He trusts your management of the lives of others. Just not your own."

Kat opened her mouth to object but was interrupted by an agent with a laptop.

"Satellites have scanned the location. Two heat signatures. One normal, the other is, well…missing an arm…"

Kat nodded. "Sounds like our freak show."

Nez frowned. "Only two heat signatures?"

The agent nodded. "It was a small possibility Steel and Sarlo would be here."

"That's what the questioning is for."

Looking around, she noticed most of the agents had already deplaned.

"Ok everyone, listen up," she shouted. The team gathered around here, some struggling to see over the others.

Nez cleared his throat and subtly used his foot to push a crate closer to her. Kat sniffed- she wasn't *that* short- but stepped up onto the crate anyway.

"We all know who and what we're dealing with on this one so I'll make this short and make sure all the bases are covered," she began. "We have two doors to the house- front and back. I want the advance team to split up into two groups of six- one group covering each door. As for everyone else, I want one agent every four feet a complete 360 degrees surrounding the house. You are authorized to use firearms but not deadly force. No mistakes. We can't question corpses. Good luck everyone."

With a nod she dismounted the crate and began to make her way towards one of the advance teams. She was stopped by a strong grasp on her arm. She was beginning to get really sick of this.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Turning to glare at Nez, she answered "To join the advance team."

"I don't think so."

Noting that each of the teams already had six members and the only gap in the defenses was a spot next to a large pile of wood, Kat sighed but didn't argue.

"This is where the team leader should be," Nez informed her. "Look, you can see everything that's going on."

Shaking off his arm, Kat picked up her radio. "Everyone ready?"

She listened to the raucous over the radio as the agents sounded off one by one.

"Ok…advance team go."

The leader of the advance team seemed to move in slow motion as Kat realized something was wrong. The world went silent with the exception of an extra click as the door opened.

She felt herself being pulled to the ground before she could even yell. Trying to get up, she felt arms holding her to the ground as the woodpile she had been pulled behind shielded her from the worst of the explosion. Eyes wide open, all she could do was watch as pieces of debris flew over her. She thought she saw a boot.

Ears ringing, Kat stumbled to her feet and began counting the other dust-covered dorms that were attempting to do the same. Just as she counted 20, there was a cracking sound and one of the 20 slumped back to the ground. The three seconds that followed was chaos followed by another crack and another limp body.

Kat ducked back down and yelled into her radio. "Everyone find cover now! Don't come out until I say."

Hearing the satellite phone strapped to Nez's armor go off, she watched as he spoke to the person on the other line, finger in one ear, trying to hear over the commotion. It was a terse call and it was over quickly.

He turned back towards Kat. "That was the London team. They're under fire."

Kat winced as a bullet hit the woodpile two feet above her head. "No kidding."

Nez looked grimly at Kat. "This is too organized for Dread."

Kat nodded. "That's a given." She listened for a few seconds as three more shots rang out. "They're all coming in from the same angle. The shooter's stationary."

Nez breathed deep. "I'm going to go for him. At our angle we're the only ones with a chance. It's going to be risky though."

Kat gritted her teeth. "Then let me go."

Jake shook his head and smiled. "Not your job on this one."

"Then nobody's going!"

Jake shook his head again. "Anyone inside that house is dead. Whoever this shooter is, he or she might be our last chance at finding out where Max is."

Kat knew she had to let him go. "Be careful."

"You got it."

Kat say back against the woodpile counting the shots and the space between them, willing herself not to think about what an absolute disaster this was, how many people she'd gotten killed, what she could've done differently. After a minute of counting she gave up. 3 seconds between shots was more than enough time for an expert to reload. There was no way of telling how man bullets the gun's magazine held or how many the sniper had left.

Counting or not, it was still noticeable when at least 20 seconds passed without the crack of the gun. She almost shouted for joy when her radio crackled and Nez's voice gave the all clear.

"All right everyone, finding survivors is the first priority. If you see anything of interest, toss it to the side, but we're just looking for anyone who we might be able to save." Looking around her, she saw her shaken troops slowly looking around, shock and horror on their faces. "Mourn later," she barked. "Right now you obey orders. We're going to help whoever we can. Then we're going to make whoever's responsible pay."

She waited a minute for the search to get under way, then turned and sprinted up the hill Nez had gone up.

Reaching the stop, she found Nez sitting on a rock calmly breaking down a large rifle, and a man lying on the ground in front of him with his hands and feet tied.

Hearing Kat's approach, Nez looked up, not seeming too happy. "American, local gear, no dog tags, nothing identifying in the wallet."

Kat was stunned. "You're with the agency."

The man said nothing.

Kat sighed. "Look. Half my men are dead. We're on a rescue mission; nothing to do with you guys. I want o know what's going on and I want to know it now. No one has to know you talked, but if you don't I know exactly how to put someone in our line of work into retirement." Not breaking eye contact, she drew her pistol and aimed it at his left kneecap. "Hollow-point bullets, by the way. Tell me what I want to know."

"We didn't have to do much. The diversion was already here- two civilians tied to chairs…one missing an arm. Looked newly removed…and not by a professional."

Nez nodded. "Made it so our satellites would make it look like our missing convicts."

Kat scowled. "It worked. But why did you leave them? And how the hell did you get past the explosives?"

The man suddenly seemed very interested in the type of soil at his feet.

It suddenly dawned on her. "You bastard." She almost pulled the trigger out of anger.

Nez shook his head. "We can't ruin him for doing what he's asked. I doubt he's the one giving the orders on this one."

Kat made an effort to steady her hand. "Who ordered the attack?"

"Laura Chen," the man answered without hesitation, relieved to be giving the angry woman with the gun someone else to blame.

Kat refused to feel the anger. "I want you to call whoever is conducting the attack on my London team. Right. Now."

The man nodded, and obediently made the call. "Can I go now?"

"Sure." Kat raised the gun and shot him in the shoulder. Nez did not object.

The man rolled on the ground clutching his shoulder. "Why?!"

"It'll heal."


	17. Lights Out

Kat turned and started back down the hill. There was work to do- more so now, thanks to the explosion and subsequent deaths. She heard Nez smash the sniper's radio with his boot and follow her. She supposed the man could fend for himself.

Glancing back at Nez, she asked "Anything to say about that?"

"Nope."

She marked Nez's stoicism as a definite plus. "Good."

Getting to the bottom of the hill, she surveyed the site. While obviously still in shock, her agents were doing what they were supposed to. She counted 14 bodies covered in white medical sheets. As she braced herself to identify the dead, she was accosted by a medic.

"We already did it- figured you'd be under enough stress already."

Kat was caught off guard by the unexpected kindness. "Thank you."

"No one could have known."

Kat nodded stiffly. "The dead?"

The man handed her a piece of paper with the names of the advance team written on it. "Everyone else is stable."

Kat read down the list. "Only 12 names here."

Nez glanced toward the fourteen corpses. "Two are the house's occupants."

Kat felt sick at the thought of what had happened to the two people in the house- one missing an arm, both left for dead.

The medic followed his gaze back towards the bodies. "We've run a check on the people who were inside the house. Both are…were…unemployed members of DREDD. Lower management."

Kat felt a little better. The two victims were minions. She could deal with that. "All right, I want our dead loaded back onto the plane. I'll start with the paper work on the way back to Del Oro. Laura Chen has a few things to answer for."

The medic nodded. "It'll be done. Nothing of interest was salvaged, but it looked like the building had been abandoned before whoever set the trap got here. Lots of rotten wood."

Nez frowned. "We had information from Interpol that Psycho and Dragonelle were here- wouldn't they have known if the location was an abandoned cabin?"

Something was up. "You would think so."

Further discussion of the topic was halted by Kat's radio.

"Tell me something good," Kat tried not to sound like she was pleading.

"Well, we've got ten of our guys dead."

"That's not exactly the kind of good I was looking for."

"And we found Steel. We were using our equipment to look for more traps and detected electromagnetic pulse waves. The area affected was small, but it was definitely there. We picked him up about ten minutes away from the lair."

Kat breathed a sigh of relief. "How is he?"

"In need of a recharge, but otherwise he's fine."

"What about the hideout? Anything worthwhile?"

"This *was* the place, beyond doubt. We're bringing back a few crates of rubble we think might be relevant. No sign of Psycho or Dragonelle."

"Well, I guess that just leaves one question- where the hell is Sarlo?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Berto was surprised when the lights went out- they tended to not do so at N-Tek. The scientist's first thought was of the ice cream in his freezer. Better eat it before it melted.

As he was moving towards his destination, he heard the sound of several pairs of boots running down the hallway. That's when he realized the real danger. The jail cells were all electronic. The bars would have only been down for a minute until power came back on, but for most of their inmates, that would be more than enough. While his first instinct upon thinking of the company's worst enemies rampaging around N-Tek was to hide in his closet, he straightened himself up, gulped, and grabbed his anti-conductant foam launcher. With most of the field agents out of the country, the scientists were going to need some help.

When the emergency lights came on after the blackout, Jefferson Smith was no longer alone in his office.

"Had to cut the power to get in here without being noticed. It made a mess of your holding cells- sorry about that. Your employees are taking care of it now. That Vitriol's a mean son of a bitch, isn't he?" Blaine Sarlo stood before him, examining a singed area on the arm of his jacket.

The N-Tek CEO reached under the table for his emergency call button. He suddenly regretted his decision against keeping a firearm in his office.

'I had to cut your call button too."

Jefferson nodded grimly. "I would think you've taken care of the phone as well."

"That's right."

"What have you done with Max."

"Max is fine."

"Well then what did John Dread hire you for," Jeff demanded.

"John Dread gave me a file on you. Very limited. Yet very impressive. You've had a very successful career for someone so young. Well, relatively, anyway. In organizations like this one, CEOs are rarely younger than 60, much less 43. I just want you to know that I respect you. You've done a lot of good."

He then slowly raised the gun that had been hidden behind his back until then. "It's nothing personal."


	18. All Together Now

The small room in the heart of N-Tek had been quiet for some time. Rachel had figured out enough of the story to get a sense of what was going on, but of course she didn't know anywhere near to enough. Abigail had taken up examining Marco Nathanson's old experiments one by one in great detail. Dread was pleased she appreciated good work when she saw it, but he was even more satisfied that the process kept her quiet. He needed to concentrate. Never had his moment been so close at hand. His mind was methodically going through every single way things could go wrong and solving them. He had himself so thoroughly convinced that something would inevitably go wrong that he was not at all prepared for the words Eleanor voiced upon entering the room.

"It's done."

Dread stared back at her, not yet allowing himself to accept the words- how many times had they been so sure that their plans had gone perfectly but found out at the last minute N-Tek had screwed things up somehow?

Eleanor smiled slightly. "No fine print. If anything, things went better than we thought they would. No one knows anything's amiss yet- Sarlo cut the power to get in, letting the prisoners held here out of their cells. The agents that remained here have their hands full."

Dread turned to look at Mairot, who looked as hesitant to believe the good news as he was. "Well then, if that's the case Jean please give the man a bonus when you transfer the payment money into his account- we should have funds to spare soon."

"Yes sir."

Dread began to pace slowly across the room. "I suppose the next phase should begin then. Prepare to address the agents when they return."

Eleanor cleared her throat. When Dread looked over at her questioningly, her gaze went to the floor. "Well, that's where things got a bit more complicated."

Dread braced himself. Here it was. "Tell me."

Eleanor sighed. "It seems there was outside interference in Europe. Both sites were rigged with explosives and shooters. I was watching Dr. Martinez's monitors while he was elsewhere. It seems we have heavy casualties. It might be…complicated…to get the agents on our side."

Rachel, who had been until then sitting against the wall in her cell suddenly stood up, looking distraught. Her mind ran through all the faces that had left N-Tek that day, and she wondered which of them wouldn't be returning.

The temper that he had been struggling to control over the past few months suddenly shot through the roof. Glaring accusingly at first Eleanor and then Mairot, he spat "No N-Tek employees were supposed to be injured. Not one."

Eleanor seemed like she wanted to dive for cover. "It had nothing to do with us, I promise you. Someone must have intercepted the frequency and set up their own plan. Someone who wanted N-Tek gone…or at least crippled."

Mairot felt something fall together in his mind. "Turn the exterior cameras on."

Dread stared at him, trying to figure out what was going on inside his right-hand man's head, and nodded for Eleanor to do so.

Going over to a corner of the room where the security aspects of the lair were kept- it was almost useless to have an impenetrable room if one had no idea when it might be safe to come outside- Eleanor turned on the hidden cameras that swept the outside of the base.

"Oh."

Dread *knew* he hated the sound of that. Going over to look, he was greeted with the sight of several trucks of what could only be government agents slowly surrounding N-Tek's perimeter. After a few seconds, one of the cameras automatically zoomed in on a woman exiting one of the trucks.

More intrigued then upset, Dread turned to his associates. "I do believe we have the Central Intelligence Agency at our door."

Everyone already knew what they had to do- they had been briefed extensively while the two European teams had been at their mission. She had gotten the best men and women available, and Laura Chen had a good feeling about this. The three-pronged attack had sounded outlandish and a bit complicated at first, but it had gone perfectly. They had not yet received a report from one of their teams, but it hardly mattered. N-Teks forces had been lured away from home and occupied, and now all that was left was to take down the organization itself. Even if Jefferson Smith could see them coming, he couldn't do a damn thing.

Looking around her, she saw exactly what she wanted to- four groups of heavily armed agents waiting on her word to bring down N-Tek.

"One last time." She shouted, making absolutely sure that no one would later be able to deny hearing her. "Lethal force is not authorized in this moment. The occupants of the building are techies and corporate execs. We would like to put the scientists to use for our side if it is possible. The higher ups we'll be keeping for bargaining. You are authorized to use your weapon only if your life is in danger, and above all, Jefferson Smith must not be harmed in any way. If any of these orders are not followed to the letter, you'll find yourself facing a court martial."

She looked around to make sure she was understood- everyone looked grim, so she assumed so.

"All right then. Let's put an end to this."

"Well, my loyal friends, it seems we will be here a while longer. On the bright side, however, it also seems we'll have front row seats."

Mairot seemed to settle deeper into his chair, and Eleanor grinned. This was hardly bad news. If anything, their guests would take the blame for what had happened to N-Tek. Dread's involvement could be hidden completely.

Dread tapped a few buttons on the keyboard next to the large viewing screen in the back of the room, and suddenly a metallic face had joined them.

Dread nodded to the form. "Psycho, my friend. It's been too long."

"Much too long." The cyborg growled. "Is it time for us to come back yet?"

Dread smiled "Happily, that time is soon approaching. I'm sorry I had to send you away for so long, but of course you knew it was necessary."

Rachel looked from Dread to Abigail, taking in both of their completely unsurprised expressions. "This was all a set up from the very beginning."

Abigail glared at her. "Not all of it. This idiot going rogue certainly wasn't part of the plan, but Grandfather has a talent for patching things up."

Dread have the girl a silencing look, then turned back to the screen. "And your partner, Psycho? I do hope the two of you have managed not to inflict too much damage on one another."

Dragonelle appeared, glaring sideways at Psycho. "It was a challenge."

"Well, we will all be together again soon enough. You can begin your trip back now. By the time you get here, everything will be settled."

The two forms on the screen nodded, knowing good things were to come.

Dragonelle smiled. "See you soon, John."

While the team entered the building, Laura stayed behind to make sure they hadn't missed any possible escape routes. Her surveying of the building's blueprints was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. "It's the advance team. Apparently the team leader has some information for you."

Chen snatched the two-way radio he offered out of his hand and pressed the transmit button. "Go ahead."

While the words that emanated from the walkie's speaker made grammatical sense, Laura Chen had to hear them again before her mind could understand and process them. "Say again Team Leader Delta."

The man on the other end of the line hated his job just then. Looking at the corpse in front of him, he repeated the news. "Jefferson Smith is dead."


	19. New Regime

Once he was sure the money had been transferred, Blains Sarlo drove home. He noticed his car still smelled like pancakes- something that would undoubtedly amuse James.

Upon arriving at his apartment, he braced himself for some kind of flying breakfast food- James was often testy after someone subbed his cooking. Instead, the apartment was silent. Blaine was relieved. Although flying waffles weren't exactly dangerous, he felt the strong urge to avoid human interaction for a little while.

Walking into the dark kitchen, he was put on guard again upon seeing the usually clean counter was a bit cluttered. Flicking on the lights, he braced himself- maybe James was in the mood for revenge after all. For the first time that week, however, he was pleasantly surprised with what he found. James had left the usual checkbook out- amounts already filled out to pay all the bills so Blaine only had to sign. Next to that was a bottle of Jack Daniels and a glass of ice.

Blaine never understood how James knew when a job had turned lousy, but was grateful anyway. There were definitely perks to sharing an apartment with someone who had slightly feminine tendencies once in a while.

After signing the checks with his usual "chicken on acid" handwriting, he grabbed the bottle and glass and dumped himself unceremoniously onto the couch. Pouring the first glass, he turned on the news- where there was trouble there was usually someone willing to pay to have someone else killed.

As soon as the newswoman started talking however, he knew the job opportunity being discussed had already been taken care of. It was about N-tek.

"Currently, all the circumstances concerning Smith's death point to, believe it or not, the Central Intelligence Agency."

Blaine choked a little as the face of Laura Chen, a former co-worker, appeared on the screen.

"Laura Chen was taken into custody early this morning. Director Michaels informed the press in a public statement that Chen had shown signs of psychological instability and had been removed from active duty months ago."

The camera then changed a view of the aforementioned woman being loaded into an FBI van.

Blaine raised his glass to the television as the doors slammed shut.

The brief moment of humor froze in a second, however, as a picture of Jefferson Smith appeared on the screen.

"Besides being the head of an enormously successful sports company for 10 years, Smith was also known for his participation in numerous charities dedicated to world peace. He is survived by his adopted son extreme sports star Josh McGrath who is unavailable for questioning at this time."

The woman on the tv screen stopped talking and looked behind her as a crowd suddenly formed around someone exiting the building. Standing on her toes, the woman identified the person and turned back to the camera excitedly.

"Leaving the building is former vice president of the company Rachel Leeds. With Smith gone, the company is now under her control. I'm sure our stockholders are all very interested to hear her plans for the company. It looks like she's ready to make a statement. "

The woman who, Blaine was sure, was not the real Rachel Leeds cleared her throat as she waited for all the reporters to quiet down.

"I'm sure you're all wondering how matters at N-Tek will continue without Jefferson Smith who has for so long been the life of the organization. I have only been training to take over for a few months now, and upon review of the company's current status, I have come to realize that I am not able to run things as they should be. "

She paused, and the film crew zoomed in on Rachel's face as the world looked on.

"Therefore, I give control of N-Tek back to former CEO Marco Nathanson who has far more experience in these matters. I'm sure Mr. Nathanson will do an excellent job of leading N-Tek into the future."

The crowd of reporters rushed forward with their microphones as John Dread strode confidently from the front doors of N-Tek, all smiles and waving diplomatically at the crowd.

The man sitting in front of the television felt sick. Sometimes he really hated his job.


End file.
